


Death, Be Not Proud

by miraclemacs



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Stiles, Dark Stiles, Derek Hale and Stiles Friendship, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Sidhe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-22 16:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraclemacs/pseuds/miraclemacs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with blood. Blood, and darkness, and pain. All was quiet, the blanket of snow that fell softly around him powdering his back with slowly melting whiteness and leaving a circle of the kind of silence unfamiliar to those who've never known true winter. It was almost peaceful, Stiles thought faintly to himself, a wry grin pulling at the edge of his mouth, cracking through the blood caking the side of his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Alone in the Snow

# Death, Be Not Proud

### Prologue: Alone in the Snow

It started with blood. Blood, and darkness, and pain. All was quiet, the blanket of snow that fell softly around him powdering his back with slowly melting whiteness and leaving a circle of the kind of silence unfamiliar to those who've never known true winter. It was almost peaceful, Stiles thought faintly to himself, a wry grin pulling at the edge of his mouth, cracking through the blood caking the side of his face.

The world was painted in shades of black, gray, and white, like a glowing black and white photograph of some 1950s ingenue. The clearing was filled with snow, soft rolling hillocks of it blanketing the leafless undergrowth and trees, black against the dull grey sky. A pretty place to die, he thought philosophically.

He could feel the warm blood leaving his body to pool in a puddle of rapidly cooling slush at his side, mixing with the snow and freezing against his skin. He wondered distantly if the white would dilute the color, like paint, but he didn't have the energy to look for himself. Instead he turned his head as much as his current condition allowed, and looked up at the sky, wondering if he would be able to see stars.

The sky was the matte, uniform color of slate and bad weather. More's the pity, he thought, wincing for the first time in quite a while. The cold had dulled the pain as it sapped his strength and dulled his mind, working along with the blood loss to hasten his end. It would have been nice to die having the kings of the past looking down on him.

His eyes were getting heavy, and it was getting harder to focus on the night sky, or lack thereof. He let his head fall to the side in a kind of relief, unable to hold it up any longer. The snow barely even felt cold against his cheek anymore- he was pretty sure that was a warning sign, but Stiles figured that when you're dying of blood loss, hypothermia isn't such a big problem anymore.

With a sigh, he let his eyes slide closed as the darkness slowly began pulling him away, one limb at a time. His left leg was the first to go, inch by inch lost to the unfeeling dark. Followed by his right leg, and then his right arm.

It was as the creeping dark began making its way to the tips of his fingers that he felt a change in the air. It was as if something had broken through the veil of silence, just a little- as if from far away. The distant sound of hoofbeats, and hounds baying. Closer and closer, the hoofbeats came, followed by the padding of paws and the wet snuffles of hunting dogs.

The hoofbeats stopped somewhere near his feet, followed by the soft, muffled crunching of someone dismounting. They strode slowly up near his head, where they paused. A hand clad in soft leather came down to caress the back of his head gently. 

"My poor boy…" a voice murmured. "I've found you." 

And the dark took him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got Chapter One and part of Chapter Two almost done- I'll try and post One in the next couple days. I'm going to try and be regular with my updates, but as this is my first real fic please be patient with me. I'm aiming for once or twice a week, fingers crossed! 
> 
> I hope you liked it, I'm really enjoying writing it so far, although I'm putting way more work into it than I thought I would when I got the idea! Please tell me what you think!


	2. Lying's Fine When Everyone Believes You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles woke with a start in his own bed, limbs flailing blindly as he fought against the sheets that tangled around his ankles and caused him to fall out of his bed with a loud thump, ankles and elbows hitting the floor and wringing a yelp out of him.

Stiles woke with a start in his own bed, limbs flailing blindly as he fought against the sheets that tangled around his ankles and caused him to fall out of his bed with a loud thump, ankles and elbows hitting the floor and wringing a yelp out of him. Heart pounding, he more calmly extricated himself from the deadly trap of his Star Wars sheets, Admiral Ackbar's voice ringing in his head, and pulled himself to his feet. 

A sense of vertigo overtook him, and he had to steady himself with the back of his chair. Something wasn't right. He wasn't supposed to be waking up in his bed, tucked into his Star Wars sheets, to the sounds of his father fighting with the coffee machine downstairs. 

Why wasn't he supposed to be waking up in his bed, tucking into his Star Wars sheets, to the sounds of his father fighting with the coffee machine downstairs?

A chill from the window, cracked enough to let in a few errant snowflakes, brought everything back like a brutal punch to the gut. The Alpha Pack- the ambush, bleeding out in the snow. His hand scrabbled down to his side in a rush, yanking his shirt up so hard it nearly ripped in his frenzy to examine the smooth, unblemished skin of his torso. There was no sign of the deep gash from Deucalion's freakishly sharp cane-knife. He banged his way over piles of clothing and nearly tripped over his backpack on his way to the mirror, but there was no trace of the split lip or broken nose either. 

He'd been sure they hadn't bitten him. Not even a scratch- they'd been so careful… trying to "send a message" to Derek and Scott. They didn't like being ignored, as they'd made painfully clear. So how was he standing here without a mark on him? 

Before he could ponder this further, his father's voice floated up through the floorboards. "Stiles, breakfast!" he called, voice gruff. 

"Coming!" He shouted back, tucking his troubling thoughts away for a moment. 

Breakfast at the Stilinski household was, in a phrase, a big deal. In an effort to spend more time together, it had been a joint decision that, barring a natural disaster (or Scott, although the two weren't mutually exclusive as often as could be hoped), they eat breakfast together every morning. They traded off the cooking- Stiles was lucky that today had been his father's day in the kitchen. 

He sat down at the table to a plate of bacon, eggs, sausage and hash browns. He looked up and met his father's eyes, expression clearly less than impressed. "Dad, I thought we talked about the bacon." He said, voice stern.

His father raised an eyebrow as he dug into his breakfast, loading his fork with food. "We did, Stiles. And as your father I made the executive decision to ignore you." He took a bite of eggs and sausage and smiled- the expression of a man completely at peace with the world. "I get enough of that granola, oatmeal, all natural crap when you cook. When I've got the kitchen I'd like to have a little good ol fashioned meat involved. Keeps me sane." 

Stiles rolled his eyes, avoiding the topic and taking a bite of sausage instead. Despite himself, he moaned and stuffed a few more bites in. Just because he didn't think it was best for his father to eat meat constantly didn't mean he couldn't enjoy it when it was available. 

"So how was your night?" his dad asked, glancing up from his food for a moment. "I didn't hear you come in." Stiles choked on the sausage in his mouth, almost missing his father's stern expression (which was far more effective than his own). 

"Ah, yeah, got held up with Scott. Got in late, after you went to sleep." He rasped out, pounding his chest to try and clear the rest of the debris from his throat. "Was good, ah, you know, did some homework, picked up some hookers, robbed a bank, the usual." 

His father shook his head in exasperation. "I was hoping you'd be home earlier but I suppose I should expect it at this point." he shook his head, going quiet. "Nevermind. Glad you had a good time." 

Stiles' throat was suspiciously tight, and he was sure it wasn't because of the sausage. "Ah, yeah. Me too." 

~~~~~

The rest of breakfast was quiet, and Sheriff Stilinski had to leave for the station soon after. The house seemed emptier than usual- it was giving Stiles the creeps, but there wasn't really much help for it. He watched his father leave from the upstairs window, the snow on the ground unbroken and pristine but for the tire tracks that were being left by the departure of his father's car. 

There were no tracks under his window to mark the path he'd taken to get home. Although seeing as it had snowed all night, that wasn't so much a surprise. Still, he felt a shudder tingle up his spine, and turned away from the window. 

He plopped into his desk chair, gnawing on a ragged thumb nail as he tried to put the shattered pieces of the night before together. 

He'd been dead- that fact was certain. Or at least, by all means he should have been dead. Deucalion had done had done his job with a brutal efficiency that sang of a gleeful love of violence. How he'd come back… he had nothing. Unless he'd been bitten. 

Stiles leaned back in his chair, a cold sweat breaking out across his skin. "I mean it should be easy right…" he said aloud, trying to clear out the muddled thoughts in his head. "A little wolfsbane tea and bam I'll know. I mean unless it… kills me…" Suddenly that didn't seem like such a good idea- at best he'd start hallucinating and possibly kill someone, at worst his dad came home to his only son dead. He shuddered and put that plan to rest. 

His long fingers tapped out an uneasy beat. He could always just go to Scott and ask- the werewolf thing tended to be pretty noticeable, or at least it always seemed that way; all the freaky eye flashing and teeth baring and- you would have thought he would have developed some of that super hearing and super sight and-

He closed his eyes and took a breath, forcibly cutting off that train of thought. These frantic circles he was tracking in his mind were doing nothing to help. Going to the Pack would only fuel more fire on the already smoldering beginnings of WW3 (or Wolf War 3 as he was fondly calling it). He could take some time, tell the Pack his dad needed him at home. It was the holidays- at least it had been. Christmas had only been a few days ago and he'd blown off most of that time to help Derek and Isaac deal with the Alpha Pack threat. For all the good it'd done them he noted with a snort. 

He could take some time. Figure out what was going on. See his dad- they'd been supposed to watch a movie together the night before- his father was too used to his constant absences to say anything, even though he'd started to mention it at breakfast, he could tell. And it was easier to let him think that Stiles forgot than to explain he hadn't been home because he was bleeding out in the snow. 

~~~~~

It was the smells that came first. Not the kind he'd expected, not the kind that Scott had explained to him in one of his more sharing moods. Emotions, things that shouldn't have a smell. Exhaustion was heavy in his mouth like dirt, stress sharp and static like licking a battery. His dad smelled like things that didn't have a name, something uniquely human, something father and warm like leather and the taste on the back of your tongue after eating a piece of caramel. 

It scared him to the bone (vinegar and ammonia), and he found silence growing around the house, starting in the corners of his room as he hid himself away, fingers tapping a staccato rhythm on his keyboard. His focus was uniquely accessible as he avoided thinking about the way he knew his father had cheated on the salad he'd packed for lunch with a quarter pounder with cheese, and how the new girl at the station wore men's cologne. 

He focused his nerves into research papers and class readings, and his dad noticed, but said nothing. He didn't mention how Scott hadn't come over in a couple days, how Stiles didn't answer the phone when it rang, how he'd let his cell phone die and left it on his desk. 

They watched movies at night, Stiles cooked brown rice and tofu and cajoled his dad into eating it with threats and jokes, and it was… almost normal. 

It was three days before Scott showed up on the doorstep, face screwed up with worry. Stiles answered the door before he knocked, and laughed at his look of surprise. 

"Long time no see. How's the human puppy pile doing?" he asked before Scott could get a word out. "I'm sure Derek is pining for my presence." 

Scott laughed, flopping down on the couch like a sack of potatoes. "You know Derek, he's busy trying to get Cora and Peter to get off each other's backs long enough to…" 

Stiles lost track of what he was saying, catching a new scent- something hot and musky, and faintly like fur, backed by the warm smell of chocolate. Scott; he wondered faintly what he must have smelled like before he'd been bitten. 

Scott broke off suddenly, eyes narrowing. "Hey are you okay?" Stiles started in surprise, blinking as he leaned back against the wall. 

"Yeah, man, I'm fine. Just a little distracted, my dad's been sneaking potato chips and you caught me trying to find them." It was a weak excuse and he knew it. Scott knew it too, and the heavy scent of worry wafted across the room. 

"You haven't been answering my calls." He said quietly, shoulders tightening. "I know you said you needed some space but we've been worried, man." 

Stiles folded into himself, picking at a thread on his flannel shirt. "Yeah." he said quietly. Nothing more. 

His research had turned up nothing. Nothing helpful, nothing useful, and if Scott hadn't… however it was werewolves sensed each other- if he hadn't caught it on Stiles then dollars to donuts he hadn't been bitten. 

So how was he alive? 

Scott sat up off the couch, reaching out to grasp Stiles shoulder. "Hey are you okay?" 

Stiles leaned back against the wall, rubbing his forehead and raking his hand through his hair. It was still weird sometimes to find hair there instead of the pleasant buzz he'd had for years. Growing it out had been odd, but he thought he liked it. 

"I don't know." He said finally, letting out an explosive sigh. "But I'm figuring it out." He hated watching that look of childlike rejection on Scott's face, the immediate worry that he'd done something wrong. 

"Is it the Alpha Pack?" He demanded, defensive and immediately trying to formulate a plan. "Because if they're threatening you-" 

Stiles did the only thing he could think of. He laughed. Scott stopped in his tracks and stared, hurt. "What?" he asked.

Stiles shook his head, saying nothing for a moment. "It's fine Scott." He said finally. "Honestly. My dad and I are just having some… issues. I haven't been home and it's… it's hard on him. He's trying to keep me close, okay? I just didn't want to admit I'd been grounded okay? It's embarrassing." He looked up sheepishly to meet Scott's eyes. "Don't tell Derek? Or Peter, God, I'd never hear the end of it." 

Scott nodded immediately, body relaxing, too trusting to read his heartbeat for a lie. The rest of the afternoon passed pleasantly, whining about homework, playing video games, and ignoring the supernatural world that had enveloped their lives. When Scott heard the police cruiser pulling into the driveway, he obligingly hopped out the window and made a break for it, leaving Stiles with the guilt of lying to his best friend. 

It would be all right, he promised himself. Once he figured this whole thing out, once he had more information, things would go back to normal. 

He was wrong, of course. He just didn't know it yet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'm afraid this update is kind of forced to be a bit of set up, but I promise we start getting into the action next chapter. Which should be out either later this week or next week. Fingers crossed for this week! 
> 
> I'd like to thank King_of_Hearts_129, Lindil, and ILoveSterek for their lovely comments and kudos, I really appreciate the feedback! And thank you for the kudos: cinderpaw, Neeka, Kamara_Black, and silentiochao! I hope y'all enjoy this update and keep reading!


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